Victor HUGO. Le Roi s'amuse, drama. Paris, Eugène Renduel, 1 - Lot 157

Victor HUGO. Le Roi s'amuse, drama. Paris, Eugène Renduel, 1832. In-8, bradel salmon half-percaline with corners, spine decorated (Pierson). Vicaire, IV-274 /// (3f.)-XXIII-183. First edition with woodcut frontispiece by Tony Johannot. Le Roi s'amuse was first performed at the Comédie française on November 22, 1832. The performance was a fiasco, due to both Triboulet's antics and those of François Ier. The unsettled actors played badly, and the portrayal of the King of France wrestling a fille de joie before the heroine's eyes was deemed unseemly. Victor Hugo reworked his play in its entirety, but was unable to see a second performance as it was banned by order of the minister. He then decided to defend himself against the ban in court, calling on the most brilliant lawyer of the day, Maître Odilon Barrot, leader of the liberal opposition. The trial took place on December 19, 1832. Odilon Barrot delivered a brilliant closing argument. For an hour, Victor Hugo himself defended freedom in general and the poet's freedom in particular, but it was the argument of the minister's lawyer, Maître Chaix-d'Est-Ange, who prevailed and had the Tribunal de Commerce declared incompetent in the case. Copy bearing on the first leaf an autograph letter signed À Monsieur Odilon Barrot / son bien dévoué / Victor Hugo. Percaline unevenly faded. First leaf browned. From the Paul Grandsire library (bookplate, 1930, no. 668).